thamike:The last multiplayer game I even remotely enjoyed was Counterstrike, and finding a group that actually wanted to play realistically--strategic troop movements, individual goals, covering fire, coordinated strikes, etc.-- was already becoming quite an ordeal. The only guys who were fun to play with were actual soldiers.

I still have yet to desire any significant amount of MP gameplay in any of the CoD games.

Then again, I'm still a keyboard/mouse gamer. I don't enjoy consoles.

I'll occasionally play something like CoD on campaign, but I hate the multiplayer for the same reasons you do. I'm not exactly looking for ultra realism, but it would be nice if I wasn't all kids running around randomly and jumping over bullets. My biggest hate is the immediate kill knife stab. Didn't realize it was possible to get shot 10 times and still be able to stab someone.

I mostly stick to rts games now, at least they take a little thought to play them.

Snatch Bandergrip:tgambitg: palelizard: What if I don't want people to know I came in second in Leisure Suit Larry?

I thought coming second in Leisure Suit Larry was a good thing?

I had an ISWYDT all ready to go, but you have beaten me to it. :)

Perhaps the whole socializing thing that the industry is pushing wouldn't be so vulgar if it really was about increasing interactivity between players and not a naked attempt to use players as free advertising drones.

At least the old coin op games let you know how they were screwing you for one more quarter. I have dreamed for years of a multitiered civ or rts where one set of player gives the orders, and an fps layer where players try to achieve those objectives. A civ version might even involve building or researching whatever. but in general interactivity is being used as a way that is actively hateful to players, and especially casual players. why do i want all my stats recorded for all the times i just want to fool around?

I dont really play video games much but it seems like there are some cool platform/sidescroller games that come out periodically. Maybe that is because the guys making the games grew up with those so they updating them and making them more modern and working out some of the kinks that were a result of the limited technology.

I dont think offline silly fun games will ever go anywhere because who doesnt like having light hearted silly fun sometimes?

I never got into the whole accomplishments and trophies and stuff to begin with, not after playing too many single person RPGs to count. Now that I've moved to a place without broadband, I couldn't join in the fun even if I wanted to.

Which I don't.

/Learned enough about that playing Ultima Online//Now more than happy with what I get through GoG

Nobody's going to actively require an Internet connection on consoles until such a time as American broadband is ubiquitous and inexpensive, and even then half your prospective sales base won't plug in the broadband cable/configure the wireless.

There are benefits to using the game to shape an online community, but requiring a connection bit EA right square in their heavily-focus-tested tuchas.

thamike:The last multiplayer game I even remotely enjoyed was Counterstrike, and finding a group that actually wanted to play realistically--strategic troop movements, individual goals, covering fire, coordinated strikes, etc.-- was already becoming quite an ordeal. The only guys who were fun to play with were actual soldiers.

I still have yet to desire any significant amount of MP gameplay in any of the CoD games.

Then again, I'm still a keyboard/mouse gamer. I don't enjoy consoles.

Try Splinter Cell Black List. Game play is fairly decent, you have the option to use stealth more than combat skills, and most missions can be played as a single player (some do require co-op). There's something about CoD that attracts the 14 yo cockweasels who can ruin multi-player. It's bad enough that spawn killing is their go-to strategy, but after 10 minutes of hearing a chorus of adolescent voices screaming "Fu*kin' Ni**er C*unt!!!1!!" it makes you wish abortions were mandatory or at the very least server selection was based on age and education. It's better when you play on Steam, although far from perfect, most of the kids are console gamers so you don't get as many shiatcocks.

Also, when you play on open servers keep note of the people who played well and weren't dbags. You can friend them later and just do invite-only games (depending on the game of course).

SomeoneDumb:I never got into the whole accomplishments and trophies and stuff to begin with, not after playing too many single person RPGs to count. Now that I've moved to a place without broadband, I couldn't join in the fun even if I wanted to.

Which I don't.

/Learned enough about that playing Ultima Online//Now more than happy with what I get through GoG

GoG is the shiz! I love working classic games I can run from my new computer.

Aar1012:Fano: Good thing I've stocked up a lifetime's worth of games from the Atari 2600 up to nes, genesis,, gamecube, ps1, p2, wii, and all my mame emulations. So I'm waiting to go all Burgess Meredith when the apocalypse happens, time enough at last.

It's why I'm glad that I started collecting retro consoles

I think I'm going to that route too before they become completely impossible to find or cost 17633887373 dollars.

Mike_LowELL:The only thing which has confused me in all of this: Unless you are somehow really, really confident that you're really, really good at the craft of games, and that you're going to continue getting better at it to the point where every game you make renders the old one obsolete, who the fark would willingly sign up for a project knowing that their toil and commitment to the pursuit of their art will be absolutely irrelevant the second that the publisher shuts down the servers?

there's plenty of people out there who willingly sign up for a project knowing their toil and commitment to the pursuit of their art will be absolutely irrelevant the second they release the product

even if simcity was online-optional, and all the online components worked as advertised, the game would still have been a monumental pile of shiat because apparently the only people working for maxis interested in pursuing their art are the musicians

Fano:Snatch Bandergrip: tgambitg: palelizard: What if I don't want people to know I came in second in Leisure Suit Larry?

I thought coming second in Leisure Suit Larry was a good thing?

I had an ISWYDT all ready to go, but you have beaten me to it. :)

Perhaps the whole socializing thing that the industry is pushing wouldn't be so vulgar if it really was about increasing interactivity between players and not a naked attempt to use players as free advertising drones.

At least the old coin op games let you know how they were screwing you for one more quarter. I have dreamed for years of a multitiered civ or rts where one set of player gives the orders, and an fps layer where players try to achieve those objectives. A civ version might even involve building or researching whatever. but in general interactivity is being used as a way that is actively hateful to players, and especially casual players. why do i want all my stats recorded for all the times i just want to fool around?

Several games have tried that. What ends up happening is that resources are split between the FPS and RTS and the two modes hamper each other. The end result is a game where the player can switch between a mediocre FPS and a mediocre RTS.

Christ, do any of you idiots actually like video games? Or do you prefer biatching about how "it was better in my days" through rose tinted glasses like the old crusty video game hipsters that you are? Because I grew up with the NES, SNES, and gameboy, and I can say that games were far shiattier per-capita than they were now. Yeah, there are a lot of shiat over the years like always online DRM and uninspired triple As, but if you arent having fun with video games today, the problem is with you.

Pocket Ninja:That will be the day I go from very occasionally playing video games to not playing them at all.

Exactly. The last thing I need video game wise is to have some 16 year old kid with no life beyond his basement, hopped up on Mt. Dew frag my ass 15 seconds after joining some online game, and paying for that privilege.

Chess is a game that has changed very little over centuries. The video game industry can learn from this--not everyone wants to be a part of every trend (social media or otherwise). There is a market for excellent single player games. The market that purchases these games is probably also the market that does not participate in social media for gaming.

Fallout Boy:Christ, do any of you idiots actually like video games? Or do you prefer biatching about how "it was better in my days" through rose tinted glasses like the old crusty video game hipsters that you are? Because I grew up with the NES, SNES, and gameboy, and I can say that games were far shiattier per-capita than they were now. Yeah, there are a lot of shiat over the years like always online DRM and uninspired triple As, but if you arent having fun with video games today, the problem is with you.

I love not being able to fully mute players online, or dickholes team killing with no way to ban them other than reporting them to xbox live. Yes please explain how awesome it is to have online requirements for games where a half incomplete game is fixed, after the release with "patches.".

Tyrosine:There's something about CoD that attracts the 14 yo cockweasels who can ruin multi-player. It's bad enough that spawn killing is their go-to strategy, but after 10 minutes of hearing a chorus of adolescent voices screaming "Fu*kin' Ni**er C*unt!!!1!!"

On the flipside of that are the mouthbreathers with headsets and angry background mom noises who boot you for "camping" on a goddamn sniper map.

I have found it almost impossible to find a group that doesn't leap and bound all over the place, doesn't spawn-kill, and doesn't b*tch about people playing a war game as if they were at least pretending to be actually concerned about surviving ("you're camping! you're supposed to be out in the open, pussy!")--or some combination of all of the above.

I buy these games for the single player missions. The AI on most of the CoD games is good enough to keep me interested and to replay the missions on different difficulties or with different strategies. I hope some of these indie producers start fighting back with even more amazing open world single player missions. MP gets annoying fast.

Rhypskallion:Chess is a game that has changed very little over centuries. The video game industry can learn from this--not everyone wants to be a part of every trend (social media or otherwise). There is a market for excellent single player games. The market that purchases these games is probably also the market that does not participate in social media for gaming.

nocturnal001:I really liked how Dark Souls managed the online play. It was part of the single player game, which for a game that doesn't really work for full on MP is the best option.

Agreed. I wouldn't have put nearly the number of hours into that game without the online part. It wasn't tacked on, it was an essential part of the experience. I also liked how you didn't use the headset to communicate, just in-game gestures. It actually made for better online interaction and led to community-based rules of etiquette. It was very civilized, even when someone was trying to kill me, or I them.

However, the online portion could also be turned off and you still got a lot out of the game as well. Unless the game is actually an MMO, there's no need to make it online-only. It's one of the reasons Diablo 3 was better on the PS3.

I am excited for Destiny, and I won't mind online-only for that because that's what the game is about.

I did the calculation and between the game prices, the hardware prices, the fact that more and more game consist of a 5 hour solo campaign and the rest being online, that and having to actually pay for the privilege of accessing crappy servers where my choices will be limited between having my sexuality put in doubt by 12 years old in Monster Energy sweat-shirts and downloading second-rate tv series which will be put up for free on newsgroups 20 minutes later...

Naaah.Pc or perhaps nintendo (even if the idea of playing Princess Wakamushi no hirato kapu kapu Ni: Rainbow Crusade or whatever bs, daltonian-hating game people play with in between two cell shaded Zelda releases is not that enticing either).

Fark that, push comes to shove, I might read books.

/I'm 36. Me and my friends have different jobs, hobbies and some have kids, it's like being in different time zones on different planets. I'll pay for weak hardware, pricey half-assed buggy games and useless online access the day a console will be able to paint the gate, get the groceries and fill my tax forms while I play.

I play a lot of modded minecraft, which does require an internet connection (to authenticate your account, it's their form of copy protection), so I think it's pretty interesting how ubiquitous having internet as part of a game is these days.

That being said, all the stupid social networking shiat they keep putting into games is retarded. We already have avenues for social networking, we don't need someones piss poor implementation wrapped around a game that we'll play through once or twice to start tweeting or posting to facebook when we advance a level or what not.

I mean, it's pretty obvious that a lot of this stuff isn't there as a convenience to the players, or even as a copy protection scheme (like Minecraft) but just to generate free advertising for the publisher. Get farked Mr. Publisher man - I already paid for you game, I don't need you trying to populate my Facebook feed with advertisements to my friends as well.

Fano:Good thing I've stocked up a lifetime's worth of games from the Atari 2600 up to nes, genesis,, gamecube, ps1, p2, wii, and all my mame emulations. So I'm waiting to go all Burgess Meredith when the apocalypse happens, time enough at last.

All of that, plus the 297 Steam games I now own. Some of them are crap I'll never play that came with Humble Bundle or something, but I've still got quite the backlog.

Plant Rights Activist:There isn't really any room for AAA quality single player games anymore. Or at least single player games expecting a AAA size price tag. Only the most hyped game is going to get people to shell out $60 for something that was just released when they can wait a couple months for the same game and get it at half price or they're just going to be a shmuck and pirate it until it's down to a more reasonable price. Attach an online component so they can't and you get whiners complaining about that. You can't win.

Eh, there are some. Bethesda still seems interested in making single player titles if the sales figures on Skyrim and Fallout: New Vegas are any indicator. There's also the Witcher guys, although they're Polish so they aren't AAA so much as... uhm... what's the first letter in Polish?

meteorite:Antimatter: Destiny was always an online game though, it's bungies take on one part borderlands, one part PSO. It actually came out quite nice from the beta, a few communication issues aside.

More concerning was something like Titanfall, which had no real reason to be online only.

Xbox's aren't powerful enough to handle all the computing required by themselves and rely on cloud processing for a large amount of the stuff going on in game.

Ohwaityoureseriousletmelaughharder.jpg

b-maz:SomeoneDumb: I never got into the whole accomplishments and trophies and stuff to begin with, not after playing too many single person RPGs to count. Now that I've moved to a place without broadband, I couldn't join in the fun even if I wanted to.

Which I don't.

/Learned enough about that playing Ultima Online//Now more than happy with what I get through GoG

GoG is the shiz! I love working classic games I can run from my new computer.

Agreed. Not only that, they have new games that are pretty good too. A lot of indie devs make some awesome titles and decide to put them out on GOG because they aren't terribly worried about DRM. Sir, You Are Being Hunted and Rogue Legacy spring to mind. No real AAA publishers yet though, unless you count the aforementioned CD Projekt RED (the Witcher).

I'm rather excited to see what this GOG Galaxy bidness winds up being about. One of the things that keeps me on Steam is the social aspect. If GOG does a decent job of that for DRM-free games I will be quite happy indeed.

I did the calculation and between the game prices, the hardware prices, the fact that more and more game consist of a 5 hour solo campaign and the rest being online, that and having to actually pay for the privilege of accessing crappy servers where my choices will be limited between having my sexuality put in doubt by 12 years old in Monster Energy sweat-shirts and downloading second-rate tv series which will be put up for free on newsgroups 20 minutes later...

Naaah.Pc or perhaps nintendo (even if the idea of playing Princess Wakamushi no hirato kapu kapu Ni: Rainbow Crusade or whatever bs, daltonian-hating game people play with in between two cell shaded Zelda releases is not that enticing either).

Fark that, push comes to shove, I might read books.

/I'm 36. Me and my friends have different jobs, hobbies and some have kids, it's like being in different time zones on different planets. I'll pay for weak hardware, pricey half-assed buggy games and useless online access the day a console will be able to paint the gate, get the groceries and fill my tax forms while I play.

Gamers (not that I like that term) are maturing much faster than the game industry. Sure when I was in college or HS, or even just single I had time to blow hours and hours getting yelled at by douches. Now? I just want something to play for an hour here and there.

I did the calculation and between the game prices, the hardware prices, the fact that more and more game consist of a 5 hour solo campaign and the rest being online, that and having to actually pay for the privilege of accessing crappy servers where my choices will be limited between having my sexuality put in doubt by 12 years old in Monster Energy sweat-shirts and downloading second-rate tv series which will be put up for free on newsgroups 20 minutes later...

Naaah.Pc or perhaps nintendo (even if the idea of playing Princess Wakamushi no hirato kapu kapu Ni: Rainbow Crusade or whatever bs, daltonian-hating game people play with in between two cell shaded Zelda releases is not that enticing either).

Fark that, push comes to shove, I might read books.

/I'm 36. Me and my friends have different jobs, hobbies and some have kids, it's like being in different time zones on different planets. I'll pay for weak hardware, pricey half-assed buggy games and useless online access the day a console will be able to paint the gate, get the groceries and fill my tax forms while I play.

Gamers (not that I like that term) are maturing much faster than the game industry. Sure when I was in college or HS, or even just single I had time to blow hours and hours getting yelled at by douches. Now? I just want something to play for an hour here and there.

When I put my first PC together at age 16(running DOS 6.2) it became my life. All I did was play Wing Commander or Crusader, or Dungeon Keeper or MDK, or Mechwarrior 2, etc. These days I can still go for four hours straight on a Saturday or Sunday(but don't usually), but during the week I got a living to make. I'm slowly building a backyard foundry/metal shop, rebuilding a 1981 CB750, and oh yeah, there's a girl in the picture now.

The last thing I need is to hang out in a virtual arena with obnoxious twelve year olds.

Fano:Snatch Bandergrip: tgambitg: palelizard: What if I don't want people to know I came in second in Leisure Suit Larry?

I thought coming second in Leisure Suit Larry was a good thing?

I had an ISWYDT all ready to go, but you have beaten me to it. :)

Perhaps the whole socializing thing that the industry is pushing wouldn't be so vulgar if it really was about increasing interactivity between players and not a naked attempt to use players as free advertising drones.

At least the old coin op games let you know how they were screwing you for one more quarter. I have dreamed for years of a multitiered civ or rts where one set of player gives the orders, and an fps layer where players try to achieve those objectives. A civ version might even involve building or researching whatever. but in general interactivity is being used as a way that is actively hateful to players, and especially casual players. why do i want all my stats recorded for all the times i just want to fool around?

Natural selection (or NS 2) but that's multiplayer only against other people

If you want to be both civ dude AND the fps guy.

Dragon commander. You have the world map where the game works like civ, then the battle map that works like an RTS, and mid battle you can turn into a dragon with a jetpack and rain unholy fire upon your enemies.

Fano:Good thing I've stocked up a lifetime's worth of games from the Atari 2600 up to nes, genesis,, gamecube, ps1, p2, wii, and all my mame emulations. So I'm waiting to go all Burgess Meredith when the apocalypse happens, time enough at last.

Have an Atari 7800, NES, and PS2 myself. To me the social aspect of gaming was a bunch of guys getting around the TV to play Madden.